


Of Gems and Nightlights

by inK_AddicTion



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012), Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gem!AU, Multi, Pearl!Nightlight, attempted infanticide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 07:59:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9874709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inK_AddicTion/pseuds/inK_AddicTion
Summary: Up until he met the humans, Nightlight had served Moonstone obediently, without thought, without question. Every waking moment of his life had been spent in servitude to her, but it took only a single Small One to change everything in an instant.





	

Nightlight’s entire world began and ended with Moonstone. Had Nightlight been any other, it would have been an excessive statement – for when others said that their lives revolved around one person they seemed to mean it in a planetary sense, celestial objects orbiting one another, independent yet inextricably linked. Yet, to Nightlight, his existence depended on Moonstone the same way a mirror depended on its owner to look into it and give it life. Without Moonstone, he was a blank and silvery plane of fragile but pretty glass, waiting for the slightest chance to reflect the vivacity of another and bathe in his temporary usefulness.

And Nightlight spent a lot of time waiting, because Nightlight was a pearl, and the purpose of his existence was to be an extension of Moonstone. Unfortunately, Moonstone was a very capable gem on her own and had very little need of his services in order to be the most successful and excellently praised lawyer in White Diamond’s extensive and austere court.

Therefore, Nightlight was given a lot of time to fall back on a passive pearl’s purpose, which was to display the importance of the owner, by being very pretty and very still and very exclusive (and very bored, but Nightlight did his best ignore that). He knew perfectly how to hold himself in an absolutely still position, like a porcelain doll wrapped in grey and black silks, knew how bow his head demurely just so that the light of any room would occasionally gleam and shimmer over the pale and iridescent gem on the back of his neck, casting his eyes in the slightest shadow, allowing for the most subtle, the most clandestine watch over his mistress, ready to leap to her side at any moment. He prided himself on it.

Nightlight had a great private dislike for the white pearls, who were as far from a properly behaved private pearl like Nightlight as it was possible to be. They were so… _unprofessional_.

White Diamond had thousands of them, all identical pretty things, and their sole activity seemed to be distracting the much beleaguered guards, all sweating quartz soldiers, fighting to keep their minds and eyes on the task at hand rather than on the giggling slender creatures dipping and skipping over the walls that towered above them. _They_ never waited, obediently just out of sight, in endless courtrooms, listening to the pleas of guilty gems, the judgements and the merciless convictions – no, the white pearls were free to run. They were free to dance, and sing any song they pleased, praising their Diamond every morning, noon and night, wild creatures lost in the reckless abandon of lunacy.

Moonstone never wanted Nightlight to sing. He hadn’t been made to sing. He had been made to remember endless lists of the condemned and the guilty, to keep track of who was shattered and who was not. In Nightlight’s eidetic memory, the doomed and dead faces of destroyed gems marched, in neat rows, regular and ordered, just like everything else under White Diamond’s control, all but for the white pearls, who were different because White Diamond wanted them to be a constant test, holding temptation out on a gleaming platter and then sending them to Moonstone when they failed. Failure to comport oneself properly was not an option.

Nightlight dared not to admit that he envied the white pearls, sometimes. He had never run in his life, but it looked like fun.

Fun, however, was not Nightlight’s purpose, except when Moonstone wanted it to be.

Nightlight craved those moments, those infinitely precious, taboo moments. They were very rare and very difficult for Moonstone to orchestrate; Moonstone was a good, sleek, professional gem, highly in demand and exhaustively busy. Nightlight had been Moonstone’s pearl for centuries, and only six times in his life had Moonstone decided to tempt herself away from her dry judgements for some quick and temporary wickedness. Little to his knowledge but greatly to his despair, in those moments he was just like the white pearls, desperate to exist under somebody else’s touch, even for half a fleeting moment.

And yet, Nightlight was content. How could he not be? His time was spent in the service of the most beautiful, the most lustrous, the most clever and efficient Moonstone, and he loved her, and he was made to love her, to reflect her in all her dazzling glory, and nothing else.

And then he fell to Earth, and everything changed.

* * *

Moonstone had been chosen as part of White Diamond’s accompaniment to Earth in the absolute chaos following the death of Pink Diamond. Blue Diamond never travelled without her Sapphires, and White Diamond never left her palace without her Moonstones. As it turned out, it was very lucky that one of the Diamonds had brought gems capable of imposing order, because they certainly weren’t.

Blue Diamond was inconsolable – understandably, Moonstone had said, sympathetically. Yellow Diamond raged – quite right, Moonstone had said, the rebels needed to be crushed. And White Diamond was downright compromised – just confused, and grieving, Moonstone had said uncertainly, but there were rumours, ugly ones, that she was being, well, _illogical._ Passing unfair judgements, confusing law she had put in place herself, like she couldn’t even _remember it_.

Moonstone regarded the law as a sacrament, and couldn’t bear to believe that her beloved Diamond could make a mistake on her holy code. Nightlight made very sure to only think it in his most secret thoughts, but privately, he wondered if maybe most gems tried very hard to forget the long and boring details of the taxes that Moonstone was getting very upset about, and White Diamond was simply seizing the chance to ignore Moonstone while she could.

“Everything is in complete disarray!” Moonstone had exclaimed to Nightlight not three rotations in to the lawless terror of the Earth colony after Pink Diamond’s shattering, uncharacteristically flustered. “These pink gems act like, like beasts!”

Nightlight had nodded very gravely. He knew exactly what Moonstone meant.

Pink Diamond’s quartzes were not half as restrained as White Diamond’s quartzes, and there were so many of them, broad shouldered, powerful, muscled, on display everywhere, stalking massively to and fro, forbidding and terrifying. They were always glaring at Nightlight when he saw them, and Nightlight learned very quickly how to hide in a shadowless corridor, how to tuck himself in against the door so that no one noticed him, because Pink Diamond’s quartzes hated pearls like Nightlight.

Nightlight was too scared to ask why – but he heard whispers. Whispers that cropped up most frequently when he was around, a pearl with his pale uniform that marked his mistress as clearly under the authority of White Diamond. Whispers of the White Pearl gone renegade, the Pearl who fought alongside the traitorous Rose Quartz, the Pearl who had helped her shatter Pink Diamond.

The thought of the Renegade made him shiver. The other pearls in the palace (Nightlight communicated with them in gasps – not quite looks, not quite murmurs) regarded Renegade with a cautious fear, privately, they pitied her. They were all very sure that none of them wanted their mistresses ask them to fight and hurt and die again and again like Rose Quartz did – the worst sort of mistress (No pearl ever openly conceived of an ownerless life. Thoughts like that led to shattering). He was not alone in hearing the traitorous whispers.

Moonstone heard them too, and listened to the story of pearl that had turned on her mistress for love of a common quartz soldier, and began to doubt.

Markedly overnight, Nightlight was asked to leave while Moonstone rested, had to stay outside when reports were being given, was left behind. There was now in Moonstone’s eyes a constant suspicion, as it Nightlight himself was standing before her in the courtroom disguised as their daily life, on trial for crimes someone else had committed. He burned with the unfairness of it all, but he was only a pearl. He couldn’t speak on his own like the Renegade Pearl. If it felt bad and unfair and wrong now, it would be better later. Moonstone had always known what was best. Why would this be any different?

Nightlight fidgeted with his hands. He just wanted Moonstone to take the hurt and the confusion away.

* * *

Nightlight’s discovery of humans made a new sun rise in his life. There was a village not far from the base in which Moonstone was stationed, and ever since Moonstone had taken up banning him from the room she was in, Nightlight had to get increasingly inventive in order to escape the quartzes. He hadn’t meant to sneak off and visit the human village. But he had heard strange noises, shouting and laughter and splashing, and had caught his first glimpse of humans, at play in the stream that flowed nearby their village of primitive organic matter.

They came in different types, like gems, but Nightlight felt very anxious and confused that they didn’t seem to have a Diamond. Whenever he tried telling them that they were missing something, they only frowned and shouted, and then tried to poke at him with pointy things to make him go away. There were Tall Ones, which he didn’t like very much because they were stern and disapproving and always tried to shoo Nightlight away when they saw him, Small Ones, and the Awkward Ones in Between that seemed to do very little other than slouching around. The Small Ones were his favourites.

They had big round eyes, little hands that were always sticky, warm soft human skin, and they burbled and giggled without fail when he peered over them, marvelling at how tiny and fragile they were. He didn’t know why the Tall Ones kept the Small Ones around, because they didn’t seem to serve a purpose, but Nightlight liked to think, that they, like pearls, were there to make the Tall Ones happy. It only made him like the Small Ones more, because they were clearly very good at their jobs and Moonstone liked efficiency – whenever he observed the Tall Ones and the Small Ones, there was laughter going on (so much laughter! It would have been unsanctioned in White Diamond’s court).

Privately, Nightlight thought that the humans were the best at laughing that he had ever seen. They seemed to laugh with all of the strange organic bodies, odd flesh jiggling. He had tried laughing like they did (very secretly, whenever Moonstone sent him away), from the gut, but it sounded too high and false when he did. He wondered what their secret was, and if he could learn it. They never laughed when he was visible, and Nightlight wondered quietly how he could make them understand that he just wanted to learn how to be as happy as they were.

Maybe Moonstone would be just as entranced with Nightlight as Nightlight was with the humans if only Nightlight could learn their secrets.

* * *

As a pearl, Nightlight’s job was to know Moonstone before Moonstone knew herself. He was an extension of her will, a tool of her mind, an implement of her purpose. So when Yellow Diamond demanded them to judge the importance of the silly little human zoo Pink Diamond had created, Nightlight did his job. Moonstone had often asked Nightlight to do preliminary research when she was too busy, and Nightlight knew very well that Moonstone knew nothing about humans.

Nightlight had a dilemma. He clearly misunderstood a fundamental part of the humans. Every time he looked at them, it seemed that they were performing a different bizarre new ritual, and he didn’t understand anything about them. Their very strangeness was the most exciting part of them, but also the most frustrating. He had no idea how to present his knowledge on humans, so naturally, the only next step was showing Moonstone how to learn herself.

Moonstone, Nightlight knew, was very smart, the most clever and efficient and perceptive gem he had ever known. She would sort this out, he was sure.

Nightlight trotted back to the base, a Small One bundled carefully in his arms. He had seen it on its own down by the river, waving its chubby fists. He’d asked it politely if it minded coming back and showing Moonstone about its kind. The Small One had burbled at him in a way that he didn’t think was supposed to be negative, and Nightlight had nodded gravely, not wanting to be rude, and thanked it for its cooperation. He wondered if he should try and warn Moonstone beforehand that the Small Ones spoke just as incoherently as the Tall Ones.

Upon reaching the base, Nightlight noted that everything seemed unusually… quiet. There were no quartz guards stomping around, glaring at him and being large and threatening. The silence was pregnant and deep, tense, as if the whole base was holding its breath. The Small One stirred. Nightlight bounced at as he had seen the Tall Ones do, and the Small One laughed.

Nightlight couldn’t help but grin back. Moonstone was going to be so surprised and pleased!

Juggling the Small One, Nightlight palmed open the door to Moonstone’s temporary office. She was sat behind her desk, and glanced up in surprise when he walked in. The light glittered off her beautiful pale eyes, as cold and remote as the moon, and her nails tapped the desk like the points of distant stars. There was something cosmic in Moonstone, the gravity of deep space seemed to linger in her unsmiling mouth, thin-lipped, the radiance of galaxies was in her reserved bearing, her narrow shoulders, the tall, isolating frame, like a satellite moored deep out in the currents between the stars.

Nightlight loved her. And he loved the Small One, and he was desperately excited for his love to collide. Nightlight knew Moonstone would be annoyed at his inefficiency, but he knew he couldn’t just _tell_ her about the humans.

“Pearl,” said Moonstone, with thick heavy disapproval, “What in the name of the stars is _that_ and why have you brought it to me? Is it – one of those – _natives?”_

Beaming, Nightlight presented the Small One to her. Moonstone glance between his face and the Small One, and seemed to settle on a decision, because she sighed heavily. Then, grudgingly, she rose to her feet and walked around her desk in order to inspect the Small One more easily. She plucked the Small One from his arms, seizing it by its thigh. The Small One swung helplessly from her vicelike grip, blankets falling off its small pink form.

Moonstone had only half a second to inspect the creature before the air was split by an earshattering yell. The Small One’s face was crinkled up, incandescent with anger, and it screeched as if Moonstone had just committed treason against the Diamonds. Both gems winced, their projections flickering in response to the painfully loud sound.

Nightlight reached for the Small One instinctively, prepared to bounce it as he had seen the Tall Ones do, hating the wailing, but Moonstone shook the Small One, her face furrowing in disgust and fury. It only bawled louder. Nightlight stared in horror as she swung it lightly, her fingers digging hard enough to leave white prints as she shifted her grip.

“QUIET!” Moonstone thundered.

The Small One wailed on, ignoring her order. Nightlight gazed at it with entreaty. Moonstone despised disobedience _. Please, please_ , he tried to tell it with his stare, _just do as she says, Moonstone always knows best_. The small one appeared to disagree, because it was wailing louder and louder.

“I said-“ The Small One’s screeching drowned her out. Moonstone snapped, her teeth bared in annoyance. Her eyes turned malicious, and Nightlight, out of habit, found himself covering his gem and bracing himself for a corrective slap.

Her gem glowed and her weapon appeared in her hand, a small, sharp chisel. Nightlight swallowed, eyes fixed on the chisel. He remembered that chisel – shoved sharp and quick into his neck whenever he needed to update his clothing for the latest court fashion. Moonstone was meticulous in every part of her job, including where it extended to her pearl.

She aimed at the Small One, frighteningly, searching for its chubby little neck. Nightlight stared and quivered. _No! No!_ Moonstone couldn’t hurt it! He knew that what Moonstone was doing was very bad, but – Nightlight closed his eyes and balled his fists, rocking back and forth a little on his heels.

_Moonstone knew best. Moonstone knew best –_

“If you will not obey, perhaps you need some time to think over your disobedience while you reform!” Moonstone snarled.

Nightlight shook. He was in the unwelcome position of suddenly realising that he knew more than Moonstone. It was virtual heresy. Everything he knew told him not to object to it, to obey his mistress however she required, but a feeling was growing up inside him, something which demanded action, something violent and explosive. Because _humans did not reform,_ and when they got injured, it was permanent.

Nightlight couldn’t let Moonstone hurt the Small One!

With the Small One’s screeching ringing in his ears, Nightlight leapt forward, shoving Moonstone back so hard that she hit the desk and fell with a thunderous crash. Nightlight cradled the Small One, his eyes closed, still braced for punishment. He was shaking so hard that if it wasn’t for the Small One he was holding, he might have destabilised himself.

_Bad gem, bad gem, bad gem, Nightlight had been a bad gem –_

“Pearl.”

Moonstone’s voice was absolutely _icy_ with fury.

“Drop it.”

Quickly, jerkily, but he couldn’t believe his own insubordination, Nightlight shook his head.

“You _dare…?”_ Moonstone sounded more surprised than angry. It didn’t last. Nightlight heard her release the sharp breath that meant she was straightening up, setting her shoulders back. She often did it when she was working, preparing herself to do something unpleasant. And when she next spoke, her voice was as cold as the frigid depths of space.

“I knew this would happen. There’s been talk… That pearls have become _rebellious._ But I didn’t believe them,” Moonstone hissed. “I thought, for sure, my own pearl would never betray me. But look at you. _Defying me._ ”

Nightlight hunched his shoulders and sank slowly down to his knees, trying to make himself look small. The Small One was quieting, and Nightlight had a vain hope that if he hid it against his stomach, Moonstone would forget it was there. Nightlight could always come back, he done it before, but the Small One couldn’t. He’d seen the mess they left behind, the red liquid, the stench.

“My pearl…” Moonstone purred. “Are you really going to invite a punishment over some wailing _primate?”_

He could hear her walking closer, knew her step as intimately as he knew his own. He knew the minute she stopped in front of him, knew that her polished silver boots would be in front of him, the buckles that marched up her calves (there was a trick to getting them undone with his teeth), knew the reflection of his own face would be distorted and wavy in the shiny boots. Her cool hand made contact with Nightlight’s smooth jaw, trailing over his cheek in something like a caress before her fingertips slid under his chin and lifted it sharply.

“Look at me,” she demanded, and he did, opening his eyes to gaze up at her, the soft fall of her white hair outlining her face, her sharp eyes, intent with something piercing.

“I own you,” she reminded him, the pointed tip of her thumbnail digging into his cheek, holding his head in place. “You do not _strike_ me, and you certainly do not disobey me over some little…” Her lip curled. “ _Savage._ Do I make myself clear?”

Nightlight’s mouth moved, but under the fierceness of her steely stare, he couldn’t breathe a word. All his breath seemed to have left him, sucked out like a popped balloon. Limply, he sagged against her hand and averted his eyes from her own politely.

He was a pearl. He was designed to obey. He couldn’t simply choose not to.

“Good.” Moonstone sounded pleased by his acquiescence. She reached down and lifted the Small One from Nightlight’s slack arms. He stared up at her beseechingly, her tall and proud profile leaning away from him. Her gem flashed again.

Nightlight closed his eyes and looked away. He didn’t want to see it. _Moonstone knew best. (But not this time, not this time!)_

In the tense, taut silence, there came an abrupt and violent intrusion. A new blaring sound, so loud that Moonstone dropped the Small One, snarling a curse. Nightlight shot forward and caught the Small One, clutching it tightly as it started to wail.

The colour drained from Moonstone’s face. “The claxon,” she whispered, and then she suddenly looked at Nightlight in horrified betrayal. “The rebels are attacking! We have been betrayed! _You-!”_

Nightlight shook his head rapidly, leaping to his feet. She looked abruptly more furious than he had ever seen her, furious and _betrayed_ and upset, and a terrifying grimace warped her face as she raised the chisel threateningly. Moonstone swung at him with the chisel, and before he knew what he was about, Nightlight ducked past her and charged out of the door, sprinting away from his mistress and the only home he had ever known, with the Small One held protectively against his chest.

* * *

The world around him was filled with fire and fighting. Gems collided with deafening crashes. The air was thick with smoke and animalistic snarls, gems grappling like beasts, eclectic flashes of bright light as gems fused and fell apart and warped their projections. War cries echoed, terrifying the Small One until it screamed a cry of its own. Nightlight bolted like a scared rabbit, ducking underneath war axes bigger than his entire body, in a panic so blind and absolute that he had no concept of anything other than running forward. Every shake of the ground under his feet sounded like Moonstone running after him, chasing him further into the terrifying depths of the battlefield.

The Small One was screaming. Nightlight was howling himself, drowned out by the shrieks of pain from mutilated gems, smoke from dissipated forms wavering around his feet. Visibility reduced to around a few feet. Gems flashed and glowed, appearing as forms momentarily silhouetted against the shifting greyness. A lithe form wielding a spear leapt out of the darkness, teeth bared, bright blue eyes alight with hot electric battlelust, and Nightlight shrieked, barely having time to recognise another pearl – _Renegade!_ – before he pelted off in a different direction.

_He wanted Moonstone, Moonstone would protect him. But Moonstone would hurt the Small One._

With nowhere left to go, Nightlight ran, and ran. (It wasn’t as fun as the white pearls made it look.) He was sobbing breathlessly as he went, tears streaming down his cheeks, blurring his eyes. He stumbled, hiccupping miserably, heard a mace thud into the ground too close behind him and bolted again, like a spooked horse. He had never run so hard or fast before in his life. His fragile clothes, meant for prettiness rather than function, tore, one shoe fell from his foot. His bare foot was scratched and bleeding, but he ignored the pain jagging up into his leg with every step. Nightlight very rarely felt pain and it was a new and unwelcome sensation, but in his panic driven state, it was easy to block it out.

He had to get the Small One to safety. _Moonstone would be so angry. Oh, she’d be so angry, she’d shout, he hated it when she shouted-_

He had been running for some time when the battlefield began to fade away, isolated gems struggling in small groups – one purple fusion was bringing down a jasper fusion with repeated strikes of her gauntlets, the percussive thuds like a second drumbeat to Nightlight’s superfluous heart. Familiar shapes rose against the rapidly darkening sky. Bolts of electricity shot down and struck the towers of the base, crackling down the stone. But in the distance…

The human village!

Hope sparked in Nightlight’s chest, and he redoubled his pace. The ground flew away past him like a map yanked off a table, and he settled into a rhythm, huffing shortly out of his nose, silver eyes narrowed and fixed on his destination. Only one thought ran through his mind – _get the Small One to safety._

So fixated was he on his goal that he almost didn’t notice the black agate until it was too late. An enormous scythe struck the ground bare inches from Nightlight had been only seconds prior, and he yelped, jerking sideways more out of instinct than out of any intelligent understanding of his near miss.

He stumbled and sprawled over, automatically twisting to land on his side and protect the Small One. It wailed, and anxiously he patted it, checking that it wasn’t broken.

Then he looked up, and regretted it instantly.

Looming over him was the tallest black agate he had ever seen, tall, but thin, like a normal agate that had been stretched and pounded flat, holding a massive black scythe and raising it slowly over his shoulder for another strike. He wasn’t a rebel, Nightlight could see his white diamond insignia proudly displayed on his chest. Glittering yellow eyes narrowed with glee, and the black agate’s black lips split into a sharktooth smirk.

“Be very afraid, little pearl,” Black Agate cooed, and Nightlight stared up at the enormous point of the scythe in distant and numb horror. He was too petrified to move.

Dimly, Nightlight realised that Moonstone would be aggravated if he was shattered, and rolled to one side just as Black Agate swung.

The scythe’s point buried itself a quarter-inch into the dirt just beside Nightlight’s head, severing a lock of hair. Nightlight jumped to his feet, screamed, and ran for his life. The Small One, excited, started screaming too, and the Black Agate roared, and started chasing them.

 _“PITCH!”_ Someone (a human, Nightlight thought confusedly) yelled, and out of nowhere cracked a bright yellow whip, fizzing with electricity, which wrapped itself around the top of the scythe and sent Black Agate soaring over Nightlight’s head. Nightlight halted immediately, eyes wide, as Black Agate ploughed into the dirt with enough force to poof a lesser gem.

Slowly, he raised his eyes to look at his unlikely rescuers.

It was a human Tall One and a gem, both rebels, he thought. The human Tall One was a huge specimen, dressed in a thick red coat and wielding two fearsome sabers. He clearly knew the Black Agate, because he was chuckling maliciously as Black Agate gulped with fear. The second gem was the _shortest_ agate Nightlight had ever seen, a Yellow Agate this time, snapping an electric yellow whip between his soft hands with a lazy smirk.

“Sandy here isn’t going to have to show you the way back to the gem battle, is he?” the human Tall One said pointedly, and Black Agate got to his feet, contemptuously summoning his scythe. Nevertheless, he flinched back when the yellow agate, Sandy, flicked the whip at his ankles. He sneered at them both, paused, looked long and hard at Nightlight for a moment, then stalked off without a word.

“Huh,” said North. “That was… unexpectedly easy. For Pitch. What the hell did you do to him last time you two fought, Sandy?”

Sandy just grinned, and tapped his nose.

Awestruck, Nightlight gazed in wonder at his two new heroes. They both looked down at him.

“That’s the look I like to see!” The human Tall One boomed in laughter. “Name’s North, this village here is under the protection of Rose Quartz and the rebellion. Your business here?” he asked, not unkindly, clearly noting how rattled Nightlight looked and the bundle in his arms.

Right on cue, the Small One started crying. North’s demeanour changed instantly. He hurried forward, sheathing his sabers. Sandy, Nightlight noted, kept his whip out, eyeing Nightlight cautiously.

“Gem with a baby, four words to spell disaster,” North muttered, but he stopped in front of Nightlight, a curious respect in his eyes as he gestured with his broad hands. “May I?”

Nightlight blinked, unused to being asked permission for anything. He looked down at the Small One, whose bright eyes peered back. Nightlight’s heart swelled up with warmth, and he bounced it, making the Small One giggle. Then, regretfully, he gave the Small One back to the Tall One.

North smiled and took the baby, setting it in one arm. He grinned encouragingly at Nightlight, and used his free hand to slap Nightlight’s shoulder hard enough that he stumbled forwards. Eyes round, he stared up at North with the same dazzled expression as a deer in beautiful, large headlights.

“I’d better bring this little one to Ombric,” said North, “Sandy.”

Sandy nodded. The human Tall One walked away, disappearing into the fortified village. Nightlight was left outside, staring at the short Yellow Agate, feeling unexpectedly bereft, unsure of what to do. He had no orders here. Unexpectedly, Sandy smiled, sympathetically, as if he understood everything that Nightlight was feeling, and extended a hand.

Uncertainly, Nightlight took it. Sandy’s hand felt soft and warm, like human skin. Sandy cocked his head, deep golden eyes questioning. _And who are you?_

“Nightlight,” the pearl whispered, and smiled back.


End file.
